


because that unwanted animal wants nothing more than to get out

by emozionedapoco



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Basically they have sex in an alley, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multiple times, Semi-Public Sex, Slow Burn, Slurs, There's a blowjob mentioned like once, Tommy/Alfie is background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28314705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emozionedapoco/pseuds/emozionedapoco
Summary: "He reveled in the power. No one could touch him, no one could hurt him. No one could call him any names. Not even his father’s voice in his head could reach him.The shame in his chest wasn’t shame anymore. It was just rage. Pure, unadulterated rage."
Relationships: Arthur Shelby/Linda Shelby, Arthur Shelby/Original Male Character(s), Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	because that unwanted animal wants nothing more than to get out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feavthers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feavthers/gifts).



> This fic is a christmas gift for a friend of mine who heavily headcanons Arthur as gay, so I basically thought "I should make a fic about it!" There's a /lot/ of internalized homophobia, so be aware of that, and also I have no idea of the actual effects of cocaine and I didn't research them so I probably got that wrong. Another warning is that english is not my first language, so I apologize in advance for any mistake with verbs or stuff like that. It does kind of follow the canon timeline but not much, starts around the beginning of season 2 and ends around the end of season 4 but I barely mentioned anything that actually happens in the show and I also changed some stuff (Linda comes earlier here for example). 
> 
> Title's from That Unwanted Animal by The Amazing Devil.

His teacher had been the first one to see it.

He liked to draw landscapes, at first. The cut at dawn, those few times he’d seen it when he’d accompanied his dad for some reason or the other. Watery lane as he saw it from the smog stained glass of his window. Some corner of Charlie’s yard, even. 

Mrs Changretta had caught him once, trying to draw the gnarly tree that grew in the school’s garden. 

“It’s very nice, Arthur,” she’d said, smiling that sweet smile that he usually only got when he spelled something correctly on the blackboard. Then she’d gone inside and came back with some more paper, a bit of coal. 

Up until then, he’d needed to steal his supplies from the betting shop. He’d been so thankful for her compliments that he’d showed her some of his other drawings. She had liked those as well. 

After that, everytime Arthur drew something, he showed her after class. She always said that they were very nice, and sometimes she gave him suggestions, too. “This needs to be a little bit darker, Arthur darling,” or “This branch right here is a bit too out of proportion, don’t you think?”. He listened, always tried to improve himself to please her.

Then one day during class, the sun had shone from the window onto Leonard Braden’s face, and he’d felt the need to upgrade from landscapes to portraits. He hadn’t listened to a single word Mrs Changretta had said during that lesson, too intent in getting Leonard’s freckles on paper just right. 

Obviously, she’d noticed.

“What did you draw today, Arthur darling? You seemed so focused,” she’d asked after class. For the first time, he’d been embarrassed to show her. He hadn’t understood why, really, and had brushed it off as embarrassment for his first portrait. He’d showed her.

The smile she had given him after having contemplated the drawing for a while had been sad, but sweet nonetheless.

“Oh, Arthur,” she’d whispered, “it’s beautiful.”

  
  


.

  
  


He’d been eleven, at the time, as innocent as he’d ever be despite the efforts his father had already made to strip that from him.

_ (He’d managed, years later, in the end. Burning his drawings and his portraits with a lighter and screaming drunkenly at fifteen year’s old Arthur face about faggots and you’re sick and I see something like this again and you’re out of this house, boy. _

_ Tommy had been twelve at the time, and they’d long grown out of comforting each other during the night. But his little brother had seen his face, that evening, and he’d managed to sneak some ale to him during the night. Arthur had drank a bit, and it had helped with the deep shame that had settled in his chest. Tommy had smiled at him, but Arthur could already see the fury behind his eyes.  _

_ Tommy had always been the wiser one when it came to their father. Had been the first one to see his cruelty, to blame him for their mother’s illnesses. Arthur had never managed to not love his dad, twistedly, even years later. Tommy had been the one to shelter John and Ada from their father’s anger, when the time had come, while Arthur still tried to defend him, and that had probably been the moment Tommy had established himself as their crooked family’s leader. Arthur was ashamed of having let him, but deep down, mostly, he was grateful. He’d never been the reliable one out of the two of them.) _

Now he was eighteen, and the shame that had burned in his chest since the first time his father had called him a faggot only burned brighter. 

He went to pubs with the gang and drank until he blacked out and Tommy didn’t understand, how could he, and Arthur hated the way Tommy looked at him when he came home every night drunker than the previous.

Polly didn’t care; for her, that had been the normal behaviour of a youngster. Ada and John were too little to see him as anything but their heroic big brother. But Tommy worried for him, he always did, and Arthur hated him for it because it was supposed to be the other way around, not this. 

Tommy didn’t understand the shame he felt when he looked at Oswald Miller, the newest addition to the gang, downing whiskey at the Garrison sitting across from him. Tommy didn’t understand the guilt he felt when he looked at his throat work to swallow the ale and wish he could draw it, wish he could touch him.

_ Faggot, _ his father’s voice screamed in his head.  _ Freak of nature.  _

Tommy couldn’t understand the only way to shut that voice was the sweet burn of whiskey on his tongue, the foggy haze of his drunk mind finally silencing his shame.

And it was during those evenings that he understood the sadness in his Mrs Changretta eyes. 

She’d been sorry for him. And god, but she’d been right. 

  
  


.

  
  


His twenties were a blur. 

He started getting drunk less when Tommy started coming to pubs with him, and then John. He’d tried, for a while, to be the big brother he’d failed to be previously. He drank less so that Tommy and John could drink as much as they wanted and he could keep an eye on them. Tommy never got black out drunk, but John did. Arthut remembered well the endless nights of him and Tommy shouldering the dead weight of a passed out John back to Watery Lane. 

Then Tommy met Greta Giurossi. 

Watching him be in love with her made the shame in his chest burn into bright anger. He was supposed to do that, find a woman, marry. Love her, fuck her. 

But he couldn’t.

Instead, he went to pubs with John. Started drinking again as much as his early teens. 

The pubs were full of men.

Arthur watched, wishing he could touch.

Then he drank, and tried to put out the bright flame of his shame.

.

  
  


The war came. 

Arthur didn’t think about it. It was enough to feel its effects on his mind every waking hour, so he didn’t think about it.

Tommy and John had been the only thing keeping him sane. Tommy always knew what to say to ground him, and John always knew what joke to tell to lighten the mood.

They found comrades. 

Arthur ignored the way Tommy and Freddie sometimes snuck away from the group. He got it, really, he understood them. Relief. For them, it was nothing but relief. They probably both thought about women as they rutted against each other.  _ Relief. _

And oh, how Arthur longed for it as well. It could have been so easy, deep under the trenches, to reach out for one of his comrades and touch, let himself be touched. Nobody would have thought anything of it other than relief. Under the muted sound of flying bombs, under the threat of every hour being their last, everything was allowed.

But he couldn’t, because for him it wasn’t just relief. It could never be.

He watched Tommy and Freddie sneak away and felt only shame. 

  
  


.

  
  


He fucked his first woman when he came back from the war. Some whore that had been selling herself outside a pub.

Despite his drunken haze, he had only been able to feel how wrong it felt. She was soft under his fingertips, and the only reason he hadn’t puked had been the snow in his veins urging him to move, to fuck her harder. 

He paid her and left, swinging his cap back on to hide his shameful eyes from the light of the street lamps.

At home, Tommy had been signing some papers in the kitchen. Arthur had looked at him and wished he could have told him. But Tommy wouldn’t have gotten it, Tommy thought he’d had sex for the first time at seventeen. Tommy would have looked at him with disgust if he’d told him what exactly his father had been screaming about that night when he’d been fifteen.

“Did you need to tell me something?”

“Nah, Tommy, forget it.”

Tommy had turned to look at him, cigarette dangling from his mouth, concern in his eyes a constant when he looked at his brother.

“Alright then. Night, Arthur.”

“Night.”

Arthur, a foot on the first step already, climbed the stairs back to his room. 

  
  


.

  
  
  


Arthur was drunk. Like, really fucking drunk. And high, yes, that too. The snow he’d inhaled half a hour before was just starting to make his blood boil, and his senses felt sharper than ever. He liked it when the snow amplified everything. It made him feel so fucking powerful. The kind of powerful he wished he was even when he didn’t have snow up his nose. 

He reveled in the power. No one could touch him, no one could hurt him. No one could call him any names. Not even his father’s voice in his head could reach him.

The shame in his chest wasn’t shame anymore. It was just rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. 

The pub was loud in his ears, laughs and roars and orders being shouted at the waiter from every direction. It was dark, and the ceiling hung low above his head. He couldn’t even remember the name, but really, the only thing that mattered was that it wasn’t the Garrison. People would still recognize him, yes, but in that distant way of someone who simply matches a face to a name, nothing more. No one would part in front of him like the fucking sea in front of Moses like at the Garrison.

Arthur had found a spot at a table in a corner and had been happy to just sit there and order whiskey after whiskey after whiskey, for now. The time for something better, for something rougher, would come later, when the effects of the snow reached their peak, making Arthur feel so free of inhibitions his body would feel like melting under his very skin, free of boundaries. He knew the effect of snow perfectly well, by then, could time it to the second. 

His eyes scanned the crowd looking for a target. Looking for a fight. Tommy always wanted him to be well behaved on the job, and he was right, he really was, but that meant that even when they got to burn down a pub he couldn’t really find the fight he wanted, with being sober and all. 

So sometimes, when his brain screamed at him, trying to claw out of his own head, Arthur just grabbed his cap and a bottle of snow, finding his way to some pub or the other. It didn’t really matter, that. No pub in Birmingham ever complained, since they were all under their protection. No one ever moved a fucking finger to stop him. He’d dare them to try, except then there would be no one left to pay and they would lose a fuckton of their income. 

That evening was no different. He’d find someone soon enough. He could already feel the sharp feeling of skin cracking under his knuckles. His gaze wandered from table to table, to the counter, and then back to the tables. There was no one of the right size yet, no one that seemed to appeal to the hunger for fight in his blood. 

But there was someone who had catched his eye- a man staring at him from the counter. Arthur had noticed him a few minutes before and he hadn’t been able to look back since. The boldness of the man staring at him so unabashedly unsettled him. It wasn’t what he was used to, nor what he was looking for. He needed someone who wouldn’t dare meet his eyes, who’d shy away from his face, someone scared of the monster they thought him to be. That was what would get his blood aflame with anger. The idea that someone could look at him with fear filled with him with a kind of rage he couldn’t ever begin to understand, and that was what he needed to feel. 

But that man kept staring at him, and he seemed different. He just kept looking, and looking, and disgust was not what was behind his eyes. Nor fear. Arthur couldn’t really say what was actually on the man’s mind- curiosity, perhaps. Whatever it was, it was unsettling. How dare he, how dare he see him as something other than a monster when despite his best efforts, that was what he had become. How dare he, to look at him like someone who hadn’t just beaten a kid to death a few weeks prior. 

He met the stranger’s eyes again. His blood flared. Knocking back the last of his whiskey, Arthur stood up. A few strides toward the counter, and then a punch.

He felt his lips curl into a madman-like grin when skin broke under his knuckles. 

  
  


.

  
  


They’d fought. The stranger had been surprisingly strong, and Arthur had to put up a good fight to finally beat him into submission.

Now he was pouring alcohol on his bleeding knuckles, grimacing at the sharp sting, in the alley right outside the pub. He felt good, snow nothing more than a slight buzz in his veins. 

He heard the door to the pub open, then steps on the street next to him. Uncaringly, he didn’t look up. 

“Now that’s just a waste of good whiskey, that.”

Arthur looked up, head swinging with the sudden movement. 

It was the stranger from the pub, face a canvas of bruises. Arthur had put them there. Why was he speaking to him?

“What, you want ‘nother round?”

“No, not at all. I do wonder, though, why exactly you picked me out of all the blokes in the pub.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes,” the stranger said fiercely.

Arthur hesitated. Somehow, he felt embarrassed to say it out loud. Why, he couldn’t say. He felt nauseous. But Arthur had beaten him to a pulp and still the man was standing, demanding an answer, and Arthur felt he owed him one.

“You were looking at me.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t looking for a fight.”

Anger flared in Arthur’s chest, his shame fueling it. 

How could he say it so plainly out loud?

“I’m Ed, by the way. You must be Arthur Shelby, if the way none of the patrons inside came to my rescue is anything to go by.”

The way he said his name made Arthur’s anger flare into something else entirely. He was hard from the fight, painfully so, adrenaline cursing through him and urging him to go home, to fuck his fist under the covers trying to ignore the bright burn of shame in his chest. He considered it for a second, how easy it would be to shove the stranger, Ed, against the wall and rut against him and touch and be touched, how this man would let him because he was clearly offering-

_ Man. _ Ed was a man.  _ Deviant, sick, faggot, faggot, faggot- _

Arthur started walking, trying to push past Ed to go find a whore to fuck, to let the shame of his thoughts be burned away from him, except their shoulders brushed. 

The only thing he knew after that was the wall against his back and Ed’s face in front of him. They stared at each other for a few seconds that seemed to last as long as eternity, and Arthur noticed Ed’s brown eyes shining bright despite the bruising and his split lip shiny with blood under the sliver of light from the street lamp that breached the darkness of the alley. 

He noticed, and noticed, and he was panting but he didn’t care, and then he felt a thigh against his crotch and his blood started singing in his veins. 

_ “Oh, Arthur, it’s beautiful,” _ had said Mrs Changretta.

As they rutted against each other in the alley, bloodied and still drunk, the only thing Arthur could think about was that finally feeling hard hips under his hands was the most beautiful sensation he had ever experienced.

He hadn’t thought an orgasm could ever feel so good until Ed, panting in front of him, shoved his hips just right against him and they both came with stifled groans. 

They stayed silent through the afterglow. Ed opened his mouth to say something when they heard the door to the pub open and laughter come from inside.

The reality of what had just happened washed over him like a tide. Arthur’s shame roared in his chest louder than ever.

He ran away. 

  
  


.

  
  


Tommy noticed. 

Of course he noticed. 

“You aren’t yourself these days, Arthur.”

“Haven’t been myself for a long time, Tom.”

Tommy had stared at him, unimpressed, demanding a serious answer.

“’S nothing, Tommy, really.”

“Fine. If you say so. I’m heading to London, Solomons wants to discuss something.”

“Be safe.”

Tommy looked at him. He didn’t worry quite as clearly as he did when they were teens nowadays, but still he did. 

Arthur remembered the feeling of strong hands on his hips and felt sick.

  
  


.

  
  
  


He didn’t see Ed again, and his shame started to subside a bit. Got himself lost in the job and followed Tom’s orders, didn't get drunk quite as much. He remembered less of the night while sober, so sober he stayed.

Then one day Tommy told him and John that they needed a new guy to manage a new branch of the company, and that he’d found someone who might have worked, but he needed them to meet him as well before hiring him.

Together, they went to the Garrison.

He didn’t see Ed again, until of course he did.

“Arthur, John, this is Ed Chrisey. He’s quite good with numbers, might just be who we’re looking for.”

John and Ed shook hands, then Ed turned towards him.

As soon as their skin touched again, Arthur’s shame burned bright with desire. Flashes of that night made him grit his teeth as they all sat together in the snug. Neither of them made any move to show that they had met before.

Arthur stayed silent during the whole meeting. 

Ed was a natural, he talked smoothly and he spoke eloquently. Tommy clearly liked him, and it was obvious he was going to be hired, because Arthur could see just as well that John enjoyed the way Ed had immediately made it clear he knew about the illegal activities and thought nothing of them. 

The meeting ended. As John and Tommy were standing up to leave, Ed looked at him. Arthur’s chest burned, setting him aflame. Under the bright light of the snug’s lamp, face free of bruises, Ed looked good in a way Arthur had never thought of anyone else.

“Arthur? You coming with us?” John asked.

Arthur looked at Ed.  _ There’s nothing wrong with relief, _ he thought.

“Nah, John, think I’m staying. See how Ed behaves in a pub, eh boy?”

“‘’Right. Don’t come home too drunk, you know Polly gets upset.”

Tommy and John left. 

Arthur and Ed stared at each other. 

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


Arthur couldn’t bear the lack of action, the silence, so he stood up and ordered a bottle of whiskey. Poured some for himself and some for Ed, then slid the glass to him on the table. They drank in silence for a while.

Then Ed reached over to the ashtray, muttered something under his breath.

“Your brother smoked five cigarettes in an hour? How is he  _ still alive _ ?”

Arthur laughed, tension flowing away from his shoulders. Ed looked at him and smiled. 

After that, chatter came easy. They drank and spoke, Ed asked him about the hats, Arthur asked him where he’d learned to fight so well. The hours washed away.

At a certain point during the evening, the bottle of whiskey almost empty, Arthur looked down at his glass and realized that he’d never felt so at ease with anyone outside of his family. The knowledge scared him, and the smile slipped away from his face.

Ed had stood up, then.

“I’m in need of a bit of fresh air, and it’s gotten late.”

  
  


.

  
  


They walked home together, shoulders brushing.

His shame burned deep into his chest, and Arthur thought everyone on the streets could look at them and see what they were, see the desire with which Arthur turned to look at Ed while they walked.

It felt wrong, wrong and disgusting and dirty, but then Arthur felt Ed’s hand tug at the sleeve of his coat, sending him tumbling in an alley, and the warmth of Ed’s hands on his shirt set his entire skin aflame in a way that made the shame in chest seem pale. 

  
  


.

  
  


For the following months, that’s all they did. Went to pubs together and rutted against each other in dark alleys. 

The first time Ed had sucked his cock had been a revelation, and they touched and touched, but Arthur never reciprocated. Ed didn’t seem to mind. 

They never kissed, even though Arthut could see that Ed wanted to, sometimes, in the heat of the moment, but he always moved his face away. He couldn’t do it. The shame would have burned too bright afterwards. 

People kissed because they were in love, and without that, Arthur could justify what they did because it was just relief, just that, a good substitute to snow. Like Tommy and Freddie in the war.  _ Relief. _

Arthur thought Ed understood, because sometimes Ed looked at him and Arthur thought he could see everything about his shame through his eyes. He never said anything, though, and Arthur was grateful.

They learned to know each other. Ed was good at his job and Tommy was satisfied with him, he preferred rum to whiskey and didn’t know how to wear a suit, hated them. His shirt was always crumpled, his waistcoat askew. Ed was witty and fast and Arthur liked it when he could see his mind race behind his eyes.

Slowly, he opened himself a bit to him. Ed never seemed to judge him, and Arthur needed someone to know him, because he always felt like no one did. Not even Tommy.

He told him about his drawings, about his favorite cigars. Small things that were easily justified, but that felt enormous anyway. 

Without knowing what they got up to almost every night, one could have said they became friends.

And if he sometimes stared at him too long while they were drinking at a pub, gaze hung on the gentle slope of his nose, no one ever said anything. 

  
  


.

  
  
  


In hindsight, he couldn’t have said how they had gotten to that point. 

He couldn’t have said why the first person he thought to go to after being beaten up during a raid had been Ed, or why Ed had let him come into his apartment at two in the morning. He didn’t have any explanation for the sense of warmth he had felt seeing the delicate space of Ed’s living room.

His face and his torso pulsed with pain as Ed gently lowered him to sit onto the couch. Arthur expected judgment for the violence his body brought the signs of, the violence that Ed was kept away from because of the position in the company that only ever made him see the legal part of business. 

Judgement never came. Arthur remembered only then that they had met in a fight, that Ed had already seen violence in his eyes and on his body. 

Having fallen deep into a pained haze, he was startled back to reality by the sharp sting of alcohol being poured onto his cracked cheekbone. Ed was staring at him, focused on tending to his wounds. The fingertips of his unoccupied hand lightly brushed Arthur’s chin, angling his face under the light. 

The silence was deafening, ringing loudly in his ears, and yet Arthur had no words to say in front of the care he saw in Ed’s eyes.

Arthur winced as Ed moved his hands to his torso. Understanding, Ed moved to open his waistcoat, then his shirt. Arthur was stunned into silence. They had never undressed each other before, finding no space for such an act in the dark alleys they were accustomed to. 

Ed stared at the purple bruises painting his chest. 

“Oh, Arthur,” he’d said

_ “Oh, Arthur, it’s beautiful,” _ had said Mrs Changretta.

Tricking his brain into thinking Ed’s living room was on another plane of existence, silencing the roaring shame in his chest, Arthur gathered courage he hadn’t known nor needed even in the war, and kissed him.

.

They fucked on Ed’s couch.

Had Arthur been a romantic, he could’ve said they made love. 

Ed had known the logistics, had done everything by himself. Arthur had felt good under his touch, better than he had ever felt in his entire life, had been grateful for the lack of words from Ed’s mouth. The silence made everything feel unreal, and that was exactly what Arthur needed. Unreal meant deniable. 

That night, he let go. Let himself be touched, allowed himself to touch another man’s skin.

It had felt right in a away fucking a whore never did.

The morning after, Ed still asleep, sunlight shone on Arthur's face, waking him up. For the briefest of moments, Arthur had allowed himself to indulge in the gentle shadows the early light cast onto Ed’s face, in the warmth radiating from his body.

Dressing himself, Ed naked on the couch in front of him, Arthur had felt his shame burn through him so strongly he could feel it as it scorched the back of his mouth. 

_ Faggot, freak of nature, deviant,  _ his father said in his head,  _ I’m ashamed of you. You disgust me. _

He’d let another man touch him.

His skin felt dirty under his clothes.

He left.

  
  


.

  
  


He asked Tommy to be moved in charge of the London pubs. Tommy agreed. 

For the months that followed, he lost himself in the lights of London, in his sounds.

He met a woman named Linda. 

She talked about religion and god and redemption and in that Arthur saw escape from the memory of Ed under his hands.

  
  


.

  
  


Tommy came to find him regularly, but Arthur never went back to Birmingham.

He drank and listened to Linda and went to mass and sometimes he fucked her, but everything felt wrong.

At night he didn’t sleep. He couldn’t control his dreams and they always went back to Ed, so he stayed awake. 

He felt wrong every waking hour, every moment he tried to change his shame into the belief Linda wanted to see in him. She judged him, harshly, but she stayed with him. In some twisted way, he grew fond of her. 

He tried to stay out of himself as much as he could.

Sometimes, at night, when he was so tired that he lost control of his thoughts, he missed Ed. 

Those were the nights he hated himself the most.

For seven months, Arthur wasted away.

  
  


.

  
  


Tommy noticed.

Obviously, he noticed.

It was late in the afternoon and the pub was still closed, still empty. The silence felt big around them, important, impatient. Charged.

He and Tommy were setting across each other, drinking lazily some whiskey they’d taken from the bar. Tommy was smoking.

His brother looked like he wanted to say something, and Arthur waited.

Tommy spoke.

"Right. So, I've been busy buying Arrow House and then I've waited for you to tell me on your own, but seeing you aren't," he let the rest of the sentence fly in the air, flowing freely with the smoke of his cigarette. He made a gesture as to say  _ "then I will”. _

Arthur's face betrayed nothing, but suddenly, he was afraid. Tommy had always been too observant, frighteningly so, and Arthur worried he'd let something show that he shouldn't have.

"What is it, Tom?" Arthur tried to keep his tone light.

"Linda's no good for you."

"Lin-"

"No, no, let me finish, brother."

So Arthur did.

"She made you stop with the snow and that's fine, you know that stuff's bad, but you're no man of faith and you know it."

A pause.

Tommy looked scared, and Arthur felt like he was on the edge of a cliff. Tommy was never scared. Tommy was always the one in control.

“Tell me, brother, where do you think I sleep when I stay in london?"

The question was unexpected, and it did nothing to calm Arthur’s nerves.

“I don’t know; some fancy hotel for toffs, probably.” Arthur scoffed.

Tommy shook his head.

“I sleep at Solomon’s.” A pause. “In fact, he’s waiting for me right now.”

Tommy’s voice sounded calm, but Arthur could barely hear it over the sound of his blood pounding in his veins, in his ears, panicking. 

_ Tommy- he couldn’t- what did it mean- _

“The reason I’m saying this, Arthur, is because I want you to know that it’s fine.”

Arthur swallowed around his dry throat. 

“What’s fine?”

“Ed asked me about you, two months ago.”

“Did he-“

“He didn’t tell me anything. I knew already.”

The words sounded deafening, and Arthur couldn’t wrap his head around them. It couldn’t be, Tommy couldn’t know, he couldn’t, and  _ oh god, he’s going to be disgusted with me- _

“Arthur, I literally just told you me and Solomons have been fucking. It’s. fine.”

Tommy spoke with vehemence, using the same stern voice he used when he needed Arthur to listen to him. 

And so he did. But once he wrapped his head around what Tommy had just told him, it started spinning again. 

“How-“ his voice broke- “How did you find out?”

“I was coming home from the Garrison one night, and I heard some grunts of pain from an alley. They sounded like you, so I got closer, only to find out they were not, in fact, grunts of pain.”

Arthur was surprised to discover the shame he felt at his brother’s words was less heavy than usual, lightened by the knowledge that his brother was just the same as him, apparently. There was no judgement in his voice, no disgust. And, oh, wasn’t that insane just to think about- Tommy was like him. All this time Arthur had thought he could never understand his shame and yet, here they were. 

Tommy was like him.

“I wish you’d told me yourself. You can trust me, Arthur.”

Tommy took a drag of his cigarette. He was relaxed, more than he had been just a few minutes before. It had probably been hard for him to admit his relationship with Solomons, Arthur realized.

“It was hard for me at first as well. I tried not to see it, I did. I don’t think I had it as hard as you, though. You see, I liked Greta just as much as I like Alfie.”

A pause. Arthur realized the weight implied in those simple words.

“You were in love with Greta.”

“Yes. Yes, I was.”

Arthur cursed under his breath. He needed a drink for this. Reaching across the table, he grabbed the whiskey and took a generous sip directly from the bottle. Then he took a deep breath.

“So you and Solomons aren’t just fucking, then.”

“No. No, we aren’t. I tried to deny it, at first, and I’m lucky he’s patient with these things because it took me a lot of time, but he was there. And it… surprised me, to say the least, when Ed told me he hadn’t heard from you in months. I’d been surprised when you had asked me to go to London, but I’d also been distracted with the house, and, well, with Alfie.” At his mention, Tommy looked almost bashful. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice before.”

“Why were you surprised, Tom?”

Tom smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. The smirk looked like the bitter smile of those who had already been there, wherever there was.

“So you’re still denying it.”

Arthur felt anger flare in his chest, the shame still so deep within his body Arthur could find no escape from it.

“Arthur, I don’t know what dad told you, what you’ve heard. But what you’re doing with Linda I tried to do with Lizzie, and I could feel myself wasting away. It’s no good denying yourself, brother, and people will judge you, but your family  _ won’t. _ ”

Tommy said it with such confidence and- and Arthur wanted to believe him so bad. But Tommy had always been different, careless about other people’s judgement in a way Arthur had never been able to. 

“Being who we are it’s fine, Arthur. Nobody will ever touch us, you know that.”

Arthur’s hands were trembling. The shame came back with all its force, threatening to overwhelm him. He couldn’t look his brother in the eye despite the knowledge that he was just the same as him and wasn’t that just pitiful?

“Why are you doing this, Tom?”

“I saw how you were with Ed. And, I see how you are now.”

“Go away.”

His brother sighed.

“Very well.”

Tommy got up, put his cap back on. On his way out, he put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Ed misses you,” he whispered. 

When Arthur heard the door close behind his back, he cried.

  
  


.

  
  


The shame stayed where it was, but it seemed different after their conversation. 

Sometimes it threatened to suffocate him, but there were nights where lying in bed with Linda all he felt was the anger the wrongness of her body next to his ignited in him.

He wasn’t meant for her. He wasn’t, and he didn’t deserve what he was doing to himself.

After one of those nights, he sent her away. She cried and begged until she understood he was serious- then she insulted him. 

He didn’t care. 

That night, in bed, he allowed himself to think about Ed. 

He missed him. 

Sometimes the shame wavered, like it was afraid. Like it was scared by what Tommy had said to him.  _ It’s fine _ , he’d said. Perhaps the shame was afraid of the possibility Arthur had seen in those words, the possibility of putting out the flame in his chest. 

Perhaps one day Arthur would be able to turn the shame into anger for the way he’d been made to feel wrong.

But still the voices in his head kept sounding like his father, and still the shame burned.

  
  


.

  
  


He missed Ed, his hands, his jokes, his crumpled shirts. 

There was softness in his chest, in his lungs, when he thought about him. 

It was new to him, that softness. 

And the memory of what Tommy had told him- that Ed missed him as well- sometimes it overwhelmed him. 

There was a reality, in those words, in that softness, a reality he hadn’t ever even allowed himself to think about. It was simply not a possibility, in his mind. 

Except, perhaps.

  
  


.

  
  


The next time he saw Tommy, when they had finished talking about business, Arthur wondered. 

He remembered noticing, in the back of his head, unconsciously, that Tommy had started to look different a while before. 

More at ease. His rare smiles seemed to finally be able to reach his eyes, crumpling his cheeks into those dimples every elder woman had been so fond of when Tommy’d been a child. He didn’t drink as much as he used to. 

Arthur had been jealous when those elderly women had cooed over Tommy, just like he was jealous now. 

He wanted that; wanted the easiness, the lightness. Wanted to be free of the shame in his chest that had weighed him down ever since he’d been fifteen.

Arthur wondered.

“Tom,”

“Yes?”

“Do you love him?”

A pause. 

“I do. And he loves me.”

“Tell me about it,” he begged. He needed to know, needed to know that it could work even if they were men, that Arthur could have it too. 

_ Love. _ The word felt so big in his mouth, in his mind.

Tommy’s mouth curled slightly upwards. His eyes shone bright with his smile.

“He doesn’t touch alcohol, so I drink a bit less. When one of his employees misbehaves, he lashes out less, because he doesn’t want to worry me with bloodied knuckles, even though we both know I’ll never say it out loud.”

Tommy shook his cigarette in the ashtray.

“He knows how hot I like the water in my bath and I know when he needs rest because of his knee. I make tea in the morning and he grumbles that it’s too sweet even though I never put any sugar in it, but it’s just an excuse to steal mine. We don’t… it’s different with Alfie than it was with Greta. I can be myself more. We’re even, we see each other, and at the beginning I was so scared, Arthur, and he was too. It’s not sweet and it’s not normal, not really, because we still are who we are, but it works.”

A pause. Tommy looked almost happy. It was so out of character, for him to speak so much, so freely, so lightly. He looked like the boy Arthur had thought he’d never see again after the war. 

“It works, Arthur.”

  
  


.

  
  


Arthur wondered, but most of all, he longed. 

He longed so brightly it casted a shadow upon his shame.

  
  


.

  
  
  


He was tired of London; he was tired of hiding, of managing the pub. 

One day he just gave up. He took a car and went to Birmingham.

  
  


.

  
  
  


Arthur looked at the closed door behind which he knew was Ed’s office. 

He’d said his hellos to everyone and they’d welcomed him back, already assuming he was there to stay. Arthur honestly had no idea if he actually would. 

It all depended on whether or not he’d be able to knock or if his shame would come back burning as bright as before. 

_ Faggot, freak of nature, _ his drawings burned-

_ It’s fine being who we are, Arthur, _ Tommy’d said.

Arthur had let Tommy become the leader of their family because he trusted his brother with his life, because he was always right. Was right about their father and their company and everything else. Why shouldn’t Tommy be right about this as well? 

He wouldn’t let the shame win. 

He knocked.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  
  


Ed had smiled when he’d seen him. 

Arthur had had a whole speech laid out, and was just about to speak, cap in his hand, head bowed, when he’d felt Ed hand on his cheek. 

_ “Oh, Arthur, it’s beautiful,” _ Mrs Changretta had said. 

Arthur thought there was nothing more beautiful than the sight of Ed’s eyes after nine months of absence. 

“I’ll stay, if you’ll have me.” was all he managed to say.

Ed had kissed him.

  
  


.

  
  
  


That night they made love on Ed’s bed, and every touch of their skin felt right.

It felt right, like they were carved for each other, right the way it had only ever felt with him, and Arthur couldn’t believe he’d ever let the shame tell him there could be something wrong in the rightness of Ed's body against his. Right in a way nothing else ever had. _ Right. _

  
  


.

  
  


They loved each other through the years. It wasn’t easy, not with Arthur’s crooked mind and Ed’s brain too fast for his hands, but it was theirs. 

  
  


.

  
  
  


Years later, Tommy told him he was going to retire.

They were still young, really, Tommy was just forty and Arthur was just forty-three, but Arthur could see the tiredness in his brother yes. 

Arthur and John and Finn and Ada could manage on their own, really. Tommy deserved the rest.

“Where will you go?”

“Margate. Alfie has bought a house next to the pier. He’ll see me there.”

Arthur had seen how right Tommy and Alfie were for each other through the years. Even if he hadn’t, the soft smile on Tommy’s lips when he talked about Margate while smoking lazily was all he needed to know his little brother would be safe.

“I thought you and Ed could have Arrow House, if you’d like.”

They were sitting in Tommy’s study in said house, and Arthur looked out the window. The view of the countryside was beautiful.

“Thank you, Tom.”

“It was fine in the end, eh?”

Arthur thought about Ed. His lover. 

Even after all those years it seemed like this enormous word he would never actually quite get the meaning of.

“Don’t be so smug about it, will ya.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I really really hope I got Arthur's characterization right; he's such a complex character and I don't feel like I actually managed to capture him but at least I tried lmao. My friend's the one who convinced me to post it here so if you didn't like it blame her (I'm kidding Viola I love you). Also I have an enormous soft spot for Tommy/Alfie so I had to put them here. Anyway, I hope you liked it!


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